The End of Robin?
by Jade Nighthawk
Summary: The team goes on a mission and Robin is separated from the others and has to face Joker alone. He's beaten, bleeding, and it may be his end. Can he pull through or will this be the last mission he ever goes on?
1. Chapter 1

Robin fell to the ground with an audible thud, knocking the wind from his lungs. He curled up in the fetal position trying to breathe as that laugh that so clearly visited his dreams and turned them to nightmares squealed at his pain.

He wanted to cover his ears, oh how badly he wanted to cover his ears so he didn't have to hear that laugh that struck fear down to his very core, but he was forced to listen since he couldn't move his dead-weight arms.

"What's wrong bird boy? Cat got your tongue?" The Joker began to laugh even harder at his joke, his grin so wide Robin thought- no, hoped- his face would crack in half.

Robin grunted in pain as Joker came over and kicked his stomach as if it were a soccer ball, causing even more pain to explode through him.

Oh how foolish he now felt for getting separated from the rest of the team. He was an idiot and if he couldn't fight through the pain and defeat the Joker, he would die right here and now.

Joker reached down and grabbed a handful of Robin's hair and dragged him up by it, causing tears to form at the corners of his eyes. Joker's grin was so wide and his eyes looked so insane that Robin knew the end was here.

"You know, Boy Blunder, I'm really going to miss you when you're gone. I'm going to be so sad when I can't hear your little chirp," Joker started laughing maniacally as he pulled out his precious little knife, the moonlight catching the blade perfectly so that it glinted evilly.

"Come on, Dick, think! You have to get out of this!" But even as Robin thought it he began to lose consciousness. He fought the darkness, trying hard to stay awake so he could hit away the knife that was bound for his jugular. He watched the knife with fearful eyes as it came towards him slowly, playfully.

Robin began to lose the fight and was slipping into the darkness when he saw a fist covered in green fabric hit the Joker in the face, causing him to drop Robin. Before he hit the ground, arms covered by a yellow and red costume caught him. Robin lay there in those comforting arms and looked into the worry-filled green eyes of his best friend, and then he saw no more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Hello there people of the world! I just want to be honest about something here: I hadn't planned on making any other chapters. This had just been something I wrote while bored on a free day in algebra 2, and I figured that being my first fanfic and all it wouldn't get a lot of praise. Looks like I was wrong, huh? So thank you all for the love and support, because now I can continue this story that killed me so much to write (Richard's my favorite person ever and what-not.)

** . .-** I hope this is fluffy and BFF-y enough for you, because to be quite honest I prefer the two as friends anyways!

**Yuna Kimitachi- **Thank you for the review, but I kinda meant to do the whole suspense thing because I just thought that I wanted the readers to make up their own minds on what happened to him because I didn't think I would continue this. But again, thank you!

**Everyone else**- Enjoy and thank you for the support!

I do not own any of the characters from Young Justice, but if I owned Richard my life would be complete. Just saying.

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Robin awoke from a dream in a cold sweat and full of pain. He jumped up, the dream he had scaring him to no end, but a pair of strong hands pushed him back down. He finally opened his eyes and took everything in at a glance just as he was trained to do. He was laying in one of the beds in the med bay inside Mount Justice and when he looked to his left he saw Wally standing there staring at him with worry plastered across his face, the remaining half of a large supreme pizza on the floor beside Wally's chair.

Robin sat back up as Wally slowly mover his hands away, acting as if he were afraid Robin might break if he didn't hold him up. Robin looked at himself and noticed that he was in his civvies the same as Wally, and when he put a hand to his face he felt his specialized sunglasses were lying there. He looked at his left arm to see it cocooned in a cast. So obviously his dream had been more than a dream.

He winced as he touched a gigantic bruise placed over his right temple, and saw in the corner of his eye that Wally winced with him. Robin looked over at his best friend to see that his eyes were full of brotherly concern.

Even though he felt miserable, he managed to pull a very Robin-like smirk at his best friend.

"Why so glum, chum?" Robin said hoarsely through the pain.

"Don't you give me that crap, Robin. You've got a broken arm, your face is black and blue, and you have a cut across your throat. If we had arrived even a second later…." Wally couldn't even finish his sentence as he stared blankly off into space. As Robin watched him he felt the cut with his hand gingerly, realizing why his voice sounded so hoarse and wondering how he was still alive. The cut wasn't deep, but even so death by blood loss could have definitely happened while he slept.

Robin took his hand off his throat and asked, "What about the….Joker?" He hesitated on the name, still seeing that knife coming at his throat.

"He should be back in Arkham where he belongs. When Artemis and I found you two she instantly reacted; she ran up to the Joker and punched him in the nose so hard it broke." Here Wally paused in his story telling, staring at the last few pieces of pizza in the box.

"I- I didn't react until Joker dropped you. I ran over in time to catch you, but as I did you blacked out. We called in the League and the rest of them team and now here we are. They bandaged you up and stayed around for a while, but you've been out for over a day. Batman wouldn't leave your side, but finally did to go work on something in Gotham," Wally said.

Robin cursed: he knew what "business" Batman was working on. He leapt out of bed only to be stopped by a splitting headache.

"Dude, don't do that," Wally said while trying to force Robin to lie back down.

"I'm fine, Wally, but if I don't go then Batman is going to do something he'll regret," Robin murmured while trying to make his double vision return to normal.

"Dick," Wally whispered the name so quietly that he could have not said it at all, but it was enough for him. Robin looked in his direction in shock. "Don't worry about Batman, Dick, my uncle and Superman went with him. He's not going to do anything he shouldn't."

Robin knew it probably wouldn't be enough, but Dick was exhausted and wouldn't be any help at all. He sighed and fought the wave of nausea that came upon him so he could lie back down.

"You better go back to sleep; you're exhausted and injured," Wally murmured, unable to keep the exhaustion out of his own voice. Dick figured that he hadn't slept since finding him at the mercy of the Joker.

"Only if you do, too," Dick replied as sleep started to take him back into the darkness. Wally laughed a humorless and then said, "Fair enough."

At hearing that Dick let his exhaustion win and slipped into a fitful and dreamless sleep.

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So there you have it folks! That's the second chapter, so please take the time to review it and tell me what you think so I can decide where to next take this story! Hope you enjoyed this story of mine!


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Hello again world! I'm back with chapter 3 and I must say that I enjoyed this chapter. Not as much as the last one, but I still liked this one. Anyhow I hope you all enjoy it as well!

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I still don't own anyone from YJ but if I did this hiatus wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as it has. At least there's only a week left until the next episode!

The next time Robin woke up, he still occupied the bed in the med bay, but now the entire team was surrounding him. He silently studied them, noticing that they were in a mental conversation via M'gann.

"It feels good being left out of the conversation. Thank you all for the love guys," Robin thought sarcastically. He watched as the other five members of his team jumped in unison and then turned to him with big grins on their faces. The only ones not smiling were Artemis and Wally who were standing hand-in-hand off to the side.

"Robin! Oh my gosh are you okay? We were so worried when we couldn't find you and then I couldn't reach you by mental link and then Wally and Artemis called in and said they found you and-"

"What M'gann here is trying to say is we were worried about your well being," Kaldur said, cutting off M'gann's rambling.

"I'm alright guys, really I am," at Robin's words Wally looked away, a scowl on his face that only Robin could see.

Artemis let go of Wally's hand and came up to Robin's bed to lightly punch his good arm. "That's for scaring us so much you moron."

"Look I'm sorry, okay?" Robin mumbled hoarsely. "I didn't mean to get separated from you, it just happened."

"Yeah right," Superboy said with his arms crossed across his chest. "You always run off like that without letting us know, _especially_ when it comes to freaks like Joker."

"Ninja boy," Wally muttered finally looking back at Robin. He smiled at Wally and received a ghost of a smile in return.

"Hello, Megan! I completely forgot to give these to you," M'gann said while reaching over and laying a tin on Robin's lap. He clumsily opened it to discover it was full of chocolate chip cookies made by none other than Alfred Pennyworth. On top of the cookies was a note that said, "Feel better soon: you have school work to catch up on. In the meantime I hope these help you make a speedy recovery. –Agent A."

"Who brought these here?" Robin asked, knowing Alfred wasn't just going to prance into the mountain with a large tin in hand and expect to not be questioned.

"Batman did and said that we weren't to mess with it," Artemis said with her croaky voice. "But _someone_ didn't listen to him."

At this the team turned in union to look at Wally pointedly.

"What? It was only one cookie!" Wally said holding his hands in the air in an attempt to appear innocent.

Robin cackled a little, but was stopped short by the pain it caused his throat. He began to cough a body wrenching cough and his hand flew to his throat. He sat up quickly in the bed throwing the covers off of him as he sat there hacking away. The rest of the team stood shell shocked around his bed, not knowing what to do until Artemis came up to him and began pounding on his back. Eventually the coughing stopped and Robin was able to breathe again, but even that hurt. Every breath he took felt like Joker was taking that blasted knife of his and slashing at Robin's chest.

Through all of this the team stood there unable to move as they watched their little brother fight to gain control of his breathing. The pain finally subsided and Robin looked up into the eyes of his friends and teammates to see hurt, confusion, fear, and a fire of pure hatred burned in Wally's emerald eyes. Robin looked into those eyes as they looked into his and wanted nothing more than for that hatred to leave those eyes; he wanted nothing more than for them to become cheerful and joking again.

He watched as Wally stormed out of the med bay claiming that he was hungry and wanted to go find himself something to eat, but Dick knew his friend wasn't in any mood to eat. He sighed as he watched his friend leave and wished he could do something to help out, but for now he was stuck lying in this bed unable to something as simple as breathe normally.

Robin lay back in the bed feeling the weariness of the past few minutes' events grabbing at him. He didn't know if what he wanted was to go back to sleep where surely the Joker's cackling would be there to haunt him or if he wanted the company of his friends to keep the nightmares at bay. He knew that both options weren't good enough if he slept while his friends couldn't sleep a wink through the fear they felt for his life even if the Joker _was_ locked up.

He looked at his friends to see they were already looking at him with concern and pity in their eyes. He sighed, wishing he could do something to make them not pity him- how he hated their pity- but even as he thought it his eyelids started to droop and his mind began to shut down.

Somehow Kaldur noticed his brother's sleepiness and started to silently usher the other in the direction Wally just went. They all went out the door and Kaldur stood there for a second in the doorway watching Robin as Robin watched him. He then gave a soft smile at him and then walked out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

Robin sat there for a minute wondering about when he would heal and if the wound to his throat would ever heal up: after all it wouldn't be good for a boy like Dick Grayson to go out in public with a scar across his throat and no explanation provided for it. He lifted his hand and tentatively ran his fingers across the bandages around his throat that M'gann must have applied while he slept. He ran his fingers back and forth across them in a smooth pattern, succumbing to another sleep with no dreams, but that had in it a maniacal laughter that rang so loud the one laughing could have been sitting right next to him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **Hello all! Just wanted to quickly say thank you all who reviewed for doing so because it's extremely helpful for me, so thank you!

**Guest:** I hope this is better than just a message in this author's note….enjoy!

I still don't own Young Justice or any of its characters which is very saddening. :/

Wally was angry. No, he wasn't just angry, he was furious. He was fortunate though, because his teammates didn't seem to notice it. Well, except Robin of course, because even in his weakened state he seemed to notice everything around him.

Bats.

Why was Wally angry? He didn't truly know the answer to that, but any time he looked at Robin he saw that question in his little brother's eyes. All Wally did know was that he was infuriated about everything.

He told himself that the main reason he was so angry was because Joker almost took Robin away. He almost killed his little brother right in front of him. Wally still saw the way Joker's eyes filled with maniacal glee as his knife nicked Robin's throat. He could still hear that cackling laughter that was a demented version of Robin's.

Wally's hands were clenched tightly into fists and as he lifted them towards his face he noticed how much they shook. He looked at his hands and once again saw Robin as he lay in them, looking up at him blankly before slipping into darkness.

Who was he kidding? The person he was angry at wasn't Joker, it was himself. He was the fastest kid alive and he could have reached his friend so fast Joker wouldn't have even come feet within Robin's neck, but instead he had stood there shell-shocked and now because of him Dick was stuck in a hospital bed with a gash crossing his neck. He was a failure. He was a failure as a friend, as a superhero, as a person in general.

What kind of friend just stands by and watches as his best friend is beaten until he's on the verge of death? Wally knew if their positions had been reversed, if Wally were the one being beaten to a bloody pulp and Dick had found him, Dick would have stopped at nothing to save him. He would have run faster than he had ever ran before, he would have made Joker regret ever coming near him with that knife, and he would have made sure that Wally was okay. Dick would have done all that and more before even one thought crossed his mind.

What did Wally do when his little bird was crying out in pain and bleeding? Nothing. He hated himself for what he did and didn't do that night when he and Artemis had found Robin. Artemis had done all the work: she was the one to beat up the Joker and tie him up, she was the one to call in the team _and_ the League, and she was the one to make sure Robin was still breathing. And what did Wally do? He barely made it in time to catch Dick before he fell. He sat there waiting for the others and held Dick in his arms. He didn't even keep pressure on the neck wound to help stop the flow of blood. He didn't even move when the team came around and asked what had happened. When his uncle Barry had been the first of the League to arrive, he didn't even put Robin in his arms. His uncle had had to pick Dick up out of his arms and then he sped away towards Mount Justice with Dick in his arms because he was faster than the bioship was. Wally could have done that before the others had even thought about heading in their direction.

Wally sat there in the med bay waiting for Robin to wake up again and thought of all the things he could have done to help Dick out if he wasn't such a failure. Dick had woken up and talked to him a couple of times, but it didn't make the silence that came with his sleep any easier for Wally. His hands were still shaking and even though it had been a few days since they first brought Robin back to the mountain Wally could still see his blood staining his gloves a darker shade of scarlet. His uncle had told him to burn that specific Kid Flash costume, it's not like he didn't have extras, and forget about that night, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't want to try to forget about that night because he _needed_ to remember. He _needed_ to see his best friend slip closer and closer towards death's door, because if he didn't how would he ever better himself?

Wally looked at Dick's sleeping form, and as he saw the bandages wrapped around his friend's neck he stood with a new determination.

"I swear to you, Dick," Wally whispered to his sleeping friend. "I swear to you that I will never fail you like that again."

With that promise fresh on his mind, Wally walked out of the med bay and into his room inside the mountain where he threw a clean Kid Flash uniform on under his civvies. He put his goggles in his jacket pocket and started walking to the Zeta tubes. As he was beamed to Gotham City he thought of how his uniform might not be clean for much longer.

There you have it folks: chapter 4 in its entirety! Please feel free to review and thank you for your support!


	5. Chapter 5

**Entire Chapter is an IMPORTANT Author's Note!**

Hello all! I'm so sorry that I haven't updated in a while and that this isn't an actual update, but I just had something important I need to say. I have been very sick for the past month with a very severe headache and other side effects. I have to stay in a pitch black room all day every day and can't move or hear loud noises because all of these things make the headache worse. This headache stays with me literally from the time I get up to the time I go to sleep (at about 7 every night is when I go to bed, but I can't fall asleep until about 1 in the morning. It sucks being a teen with insomnia.) I have extreme difficulty sitting up and now walking, because I have been hospitalized 4 times within the last month and each time I go I get weaker and weaker. I was actually just released from my last visit on Friday from a headache specialty hospital, and even _they_ were unable to do anything for me. They believe my headache was brought on by a virus that still hasn't let go of me (they believe I had West Nile which is a very scary thought considering how West Nile has affected my family)and since it's a virus they can't really do a lot for me. As of now I'm just supposed to stay at home and try as hard as I can to get back to being normal while on my multiple prescriptions.

Now what does this mean about TEOR? Well I'm definitely not done with it, that's for sure. I have tried multiple times to write the next chapter, but the headache is also somehow affecting my memory, so as soon as I get an idea in my head it _instantly_ leaves. It sucks, but I know that as soon as the headache leaves I'll be back to my old self. If I'm to be honest, I would absolutely love nothing more than to right now be sitting here typing out more of TEOR than this, but I can't. The fact that I've been able to stare at this computer screen for this long (I think I've been typing this out for an hour now….not sure) is awesome to me, let me tell ya. But I will definitely update the story as soon as I can, because having y'all's reviews and love brightens my day more than anything.

Thank you again for your love and time!

Jade Nighthawk


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